The highly reactive isotopes have the shortest half life - the fact that they decay quickly is what makes them release more radiation than isotopes with longer half life, so gamma radiation from fallout decays pretty quickly. Hours, days, or a couple of weeks of sheltering might be enough to deal with that.

What's concerning about some long-lived isotopes is that they are accumulated in the food chain and get inside our bodies. Having these particles on the ground we walk on might be harmless, but having them inside your thyroid or other cells in the body could be harmful. (Alfa particles, for example, are more energy rich than beta or gamma radiation, but they are stopped by your shoes/air before they reach your body. If you breathe in or eat alpha-emitting isotopes, however, the radiation happens inside your body.)

In long term survival plans for larger communities, one needs to consider which crops to grow; whether top soil should be removed or enriched with less radioactive minerals; whether grazing animals can be allowed to graze in areas with fallout, but will be safe to eat if allowed to eat less radioactive fodder for a few weeks before slaughter. These measures may be just as relevant for an area with fallout from a ground-level nuclear detonation as fallout from a nuclear accident. I live in an area where we got a dusting of fallout from Chernobyl, and we had to take some such measures in the agriculture sector for some years afterwards. This is manageable though, if you survive the immediate effects (initial radiation, heat, blast, gamma rays from fallout).

In fact, one interesting scenario for US people could be if there's a nuclear war between - say - Pakistan and India, or on the Korean Peninsula; the fallout (literally) from such a conflict might be dangerous in America.

Watch the movie Idiocracy with Luke Wilson. It's like our future, especially the politicians. We are just getting dumber across the board, especially with the people we elect.

The movie Idiocracy is entertaining but it is a fantasy.

In our real world the IQ trend in the US (and elsewhere) has been moving upward at the rate of 3 IQ points per decade. This is called the Flynn Effect and the IQ increase is concentrated mainly at the lower IQs. This trend leads to a reduction in the number of low-IQ persons.

I want to be at/under the big flash. In the Navy I was trained on Nuke and I'll take myself out before dieing form radiation poisoning.

A very somber movie was made in the 60's based on a Russian exchange, "On The Beach", Gregory Peck. A truly thought provoking gloom and doom movie. In the 80's it was remade but with China as the bad guys. Both were very sad. I did some research and found that IF there is an exchange of 20 conventional nukes, humanity is doomed as the radiation will kill all (the premise of On The Beach). Note the max numbers of Nukes in EU & India is just enough to insure the earth gets poisoned for all.

As far as HAM'ing, I heard stories that when the Bikini blast happened HF RF Comms were dead for the following three days and it took about a week to return to normal. I can't imagine how long SAT Comms and GPS will be down or how the ISS crew will get home.

I did some research and found that IF there is an exchange of 20 conventional nukes, humanity is doomed as the radiation will kill all

I do wonder if 20 fission nuclear weapons would be that bad. The US detonated 99 atomic weapons above ground in Nevada, 1 in New Mexico, and 126 elsewhere. Add to this the above ground tests by the USSR, China, the French, and others and it comes to 750 above ground nuclear detonations over a period of 20 years.

And by "conventional nuke" do you mean fission devices (fission and fusion-boosted fission) rather than thermonuclear (fission-fusion and fission-fusion-fission)?

LOL, Tom, here's an interesting book you might like to read. From it I surmise that in the future human IQ will regress. The Flynn effect is only temporary and the future does look iffy. I read it on my Kindle. If I can figure out how to loan or give away Kindle books you are welcome to it.

The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, by Cochran and Harpending

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